


Running with the Night (Finch)

by politics_and_prose



Series: This is my family; I found it, all on my own [8]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Compliant, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 17:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politics_and_prose/pseuds/politics_and_prose
Summary: Patrick Cortes was ten when he ran away from home.





	Running with the Night (Finch)

Patrick Cortes was ten when he ran away from home. Before that, it was him, his mom, his dad and two little brothers. There were five mouths and one job and it just wasn’t working the way they needed it to. He made sure Anthony and William got enough food, which meant he usually went to bed hungry and sick to his stomach, but if they were okay, he would be okay too.

Until he wasn’t. 

He could hear his mother crying, begging his father to let her get a job because her “poor, dear Patrick” was too thin, sick, “in a bad way”. He heard his father tell her in a low voice that they couldn’t leave William alone for her to get work and it was easier to feed four than five. It didn’t sound callous, didn’t sound much like he’d _wanted_ to say it, but Patrick heard it all the same.

That night after everyone else went to sleep, he packed what he could carry in silence. He didn’t stop to say goodbye to anyone before slipping out of his window and down the fire escape.

Manhattan was a big place and he knew once he got far enough away from his apartment, he could get lost there. Patrick figured if he got lost, his family would never be able to find him and they would stop worrying about food. Like his pop said, four mouths were easier to feed than five. 

He grew up poor but always had some kind of roof over his head when he was younger. On the streets, though, when it rained, he had to huddle under an awning and hope the shopkeeper didn’t shoo him away with a broom.

It was one of those days, rainy and humid, when he ran into a kid shoving a few newspapers into his vest instead of holding them over his head. He knew the kid was a newsie, had seen him around before, but couldn’t help but think how dumb it was to save the papers and not himself from getting sick.

“Ain’t gon’ fit,” he said as the kid huddled in the opposite corner, frowning at the state of his papers. “Too much left.”

“Shaddup,” the newsie spat back. “Ain’t got nothin’ else ta use.”

“I could help,” Patrick offered with a shrug. “I’m skinny so I got some more room under my vest.”

The other kid narrowed his eyes. “Ya gonna steal m’ papes?”

“No!” Patrick replied. “Just gonna help ya out. An’ if ya get a extra nickel from the papes I save, ya can give it ta me and we calls it even.” 

“An’ if I don’t?” the other boy asked, scrawny arm reaching up to run through a mess of dirty blonde curls. “Whatcha gon’ do then?”

Patrick shrugged. “Then I ain’t no worse off than I am right now.”

The boy stared at him for a minute then nodded once. “Tell ya what. You sell five’a them papes an’ ya can keep the cash.”

Patrick’s eyes went wide as he stared at the too-tall, too-thin newsie in front of him. It wasn’t the first hand that was extended towards him since he ran off – there was a nice old lady up in Harlem that gave him an apple for a couple of days before he moved on – but this one felt different. This time, it was a kid, someone like him, who was offering to help him out.

Patrick nodded, maybe a little too quickly, and the kid laughed but nodded towards the street. “Papes ain’t gonna sell ‘emselves,” the kid said, and it sounded almost encouraging, as if he didn’t want Patrick to fail but he might not mind having a bit of a laugh as he tried to hawk his first newspaper.

Patrick stood not too far from the shelter of the awning, stepping back under when lightening got a little too close for comfort, and the kid stayed close. The other boy sold out within a couple of hours and Patrick was left floundering with two of his five papers left. He knew he could get some water and maybe a sausage with the three cents he’d made, but he wanted the five really bad. He didn’t know why he felt the need to prove himself to this kid but he did.

“Ya gotta make ‘em think they’s somethin’ in there they can’t go without knowin’,” the kid told him casually as he leaned against the side of the building Patrick was planted in front of. “Don’t _lie_ ,” he added, “just stretch a bit.”

Patrick nodded and read the headline a couple more times – hoping silently that he got all the words right – before shouting something similar but a little more scary. With the advice of the newsie helping him out, he sold his last two papers in twenty minutes, a guy giving him a full nickel for his last one.

Grinning, he turned to the kid behind him and held up the coin. “Wow. I didn’t know folks did that. A whole _nickel_.”

“Yeah, some’a the richer folks don’t carry pennies. Got lucky.”

Patrick nodded. “Thanks ta you.” He put the nickel in his left pocket and fished into his right for the four pennies he’d gotten from his first four papers. He held them out to the other boy with a shrug. “These is yours.”

“Whatcha mean?” the kid asked with a frown. They’s from the papes I gave ya.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agreed, “but I got a nickel so I can pay ya back fa’ most. If ya come with me ta find some food, I can probably getcha the other penny too.”

“Nah. Ya earned that fair an’ square. Won’t turn down the comp’ny fa’ dinner though. Lemme just grab some’a the other fellas, okay? Can come if ya want. ‘less you gotta get home.”

Patrick shook his head. “Nah, ain’t no home ta get to.”

The lie twisted his stomach but he had to stop thinking about his family. They were better without him, he knew. Healthier. Maybe his mom and pop were still a little worried about where he’d gotten to but they would stop after a while. If they were looking now, they wouldn’t always be. He knew he’d done the right thing for his brothers when he left and he didn’t regret it, even if it was hard sometimes.

“Hey, kid! Ya comin’?”

Nodding, Patrick scurried down the street after the blonde boy.

Maybe he would become a newsie, Patrick thought. He was pretty sure they usually had a place to stay. Back alleys were okay when the weather was right but in rain or when the heat of August was at its peak, it just wasn’t comfortable. And he definitely wanted to know what it felt like to sleep in a bed again.

The newsies took him in like he was one of their own all along. They joked, he got a the nickname Finch after a few days because he had a hard time remembering everyone’s name so he just whistled real loud at them. ( _“Sound like a damn bird,” Racetrack laughed. “Might as well give ya a bird name.”_ )

Some days he missed his family so bad he would cry in the bathroom stall, thinking about all the things he wasn’t getting to do with them. It would take a few minutes before he remembered that this was for the best. Then he would dry his eyes and head back out into the bunkroom full of boys just like him and join the chaos.

After more than five years of being with the newsies, he’d almost forgotten that he had a mother, father and two brothers. They weren’t constantly on his mind and he wasn’t having to remind himself every day that what he did was for the best. He’d figured they’d given him up for lost or dead years ago and he found peace in that thought. As long as they were all alive and healthy and surviving, that was what was so important. He didn’t want to be a burden to them and he didn’t want them to feel any guilt over him running away.

That was why on a hot summer morning, nearly six years since he left home, he was forced to duck his head and quickly leave the crowd of newsboys getting bread and coffee from the nuns. The familiar voice had washed over him like a warm blanket for a split second before he felt as if he’d been doused in ice water.

(“Patrick? Darling? Since you left me, I am undone! Mother loves you!” A pause and then a heartbroken, “God save my son!”)

He couldn’t let his mother see him, not now, not ever, no matter how badly he wanted to run into her arms and never let go. 

Without a second to spare to get a look at her, he ducked into an alley across the street. When the nuns pulled away in their carriage she was gone. Part of him wasn’t sure if he’d even seen or heard her at all. Whether he had or not, his stomach twisted with grief and his heart begged him to run back to where he’d last seen her. His head and feet, however, told him to get to the distribution gate and not give Jack a reason to tease him for being late.

With one last quick glance at the spot he thought she’d been, Finch shook his head and started walking to the distribution gate.

**Author's Note:**

> So I took the lines for Finch's mom directly from the 1992 movie but I see older Finch as Iain Young from the stage version shown on Netflix.


End file.
